Intel to launch two super fast SSDs in Q4

Intel plans to put a lot more attention into the solid state drive market and it plans to bring a few drives to market.

Currently, the company is selling at least five different drives based on Intel's value SSD series, including 2GB, 4GB in Z-P140 variation and 4GB, 8GB and 16GB in Z-P230 PATA SSD variation. The Z-P230 uses the standard 40-pin ZIF connector and has the same width as an 1.8” mobile HDD, but half the footprint, while Z-P140 is a small form-factor solution with overall BGA Package Envelope: 12x18x1.8mm.

Intel is also selling X25-M and X18-M high-performance solid state drive and both are available in 80GB size. These drives can support 240MB/s read speed and 70MB write speed. X25-M is 2.5-inch SATA drive and in Q4 it will also come as 160GB product, while X18-M is 1.8-inch SATA drive.

The most interesting SKUs are coming in Q4 2008. They will be known as X25-E and there will be two models, both 2.5-inch SATA based. The smaller one will have 32GB while the bigger comes with 64GB storage space. The main feature of these drives is 240MB read / 170MB write speed, which is significantly faster than the current drives on the market. This drive will need on average 2.4W when active or a modest 0.06W when idle, while it will have 2 million Mean Time Between Failures.

This is Intel’s plan for Q3 and Q4 2008 when it comes to solid state drives.

If you are interested in Intel's SSD, our colleagues from 3Dprofessor did a review of Intel's X25-M and you can read it here.